SI ranks Zduriencik fifth among baseball GMs

I can hear the screams already from Seattle Mariners’ fans. Jack Zduriencik is No. 1 in the view of the Seattle faithful who’ve watched him quickly rebuild their baseball dreams.

Jack Zduriencik

But Sports Illustrated writer Tim Marchman takes a slightly broader view of the Major League picture and he’s installed Zduriencik fifth on his list of baseball’s general managers.

That’s pretty lofty status for a newcomer to the GM scene, as Marchman writes:

This may seem a preposterous ranking for someone who’s only been in the job for a bit more than a year, but the key thing to note about Zduriencik is that he was already one of baseball’s most highly regarded minds before coming to Seattle. His run of drafts for the Milwaukee Brewers in the 2000s was so good that he became the first scouting director to win Baseball America’s Executive of the Year award.

Since taking over the reins in Seattle, he has turned the Mariners into a contender, engineering their abrupt transformation from one of baseball’s dullest organizations to one of its most progressive, such as by focusing on defensive studs such as Jack Wilson, Franklin Gutierrez and Casey Kotchman.

For perspective, Oakland’s Billy Beane is 10th on the list.

No. 1? That would be Andrew Friedman of Tampa Bay, followed by fellow AL East rivals Theo Epstein of Boston and Brian Cashman of the Yankees.